Advent of Code Migration

I used to have whole text copies of Advent of Code problems saved to a repository. This is not good!

https://adventofcode.com/about#faq_copying

So I decided to move the solutions to a new repository and only have a little text and no examples, with the data files included in gitignore.

As of August 2025 while writing this post I’ve done a fair amount of the transfer but I’d like to keep track of where I’m up to.

First, copy and paste from the AoC site for how many stars I’ve got in each year:

[2024] 24*
[2023] 27*
[2022] 24*
[2021] 27*
[2020] 50*
[2019] 2*
[2018]
[2017]
[2016]
[2015] 50*

I’ve obviously got a long way to go with the solutions. But that is fine, it’s mostly nonsense anyway. Earning stars on an annual coding challenge years after the problems are published? Honestly I really enjoy it despite the frustrations. I have been looking at Reddit more to see some solution techniques for the difficult problems from previous years, and I might lean on that more as I go through. It’s no use struggling on my own and I learn just as much or even more with new approaches to strange problems.

It’s worth noting that I have a little sample code to import the input in each of the days for each of the years in the new repo. As I go through I add a brief description of the problem. I try to understand the code I’ve written and make sure the solution still works. I’ve even managed to solved some problems!

Here is where I’m up to (to be updated with progress):

[2024] done
[2023] done
[2022] in progress
[2021] folder exists
[2020] folder exists
[2019] none
[2018] no attempts
[2017] no attempts
[2016] no attempts
[2015] done

I would also like to mention at this stage the templates I’ve created for the quarto markdown pages - because quarto was new and cool when I decided to update the repo. ‘folder exists’ means I’ve created the folder (automatically) and downloaded the data for the problems (automatically).

https://github.com/nmoorenz/advent-of-code/blob/main/create-files.py

This file creates the year folder if it does not exist, takes the template file and creates a solution file for each of the days, creates an input file for each of the days, then creates a readme file with entries for each of the days. The `` is not included but prevents the code from running here.

Call it with py create-files.py 2024

import sys
import os 

year = sys.argv[1]

# create folder for the year 
if not os.path.exists(year):
    os.makedirs(year)
    
# read in the template
with open(f'template.qmd', 'r') as f:
    qmd_file = f.read()

# loop through and create text files
for i in range(1, 26):
    with open(f"{year}/data-{year}-{i:02d}.txt", "w") as f:
        pass
    with open(f"{year}/{year}-{i:02d}.qmd", "w") as f:
        f.write(qmd_file.format(x=i, year=year, python="{python}"))

# create the overall readme file with notes for each day and part
readme = """
### Day {i}

1.  
2.  

-   
-   

"""

# pre-formatted readme to describe each day's attempt
with open(f'{year}/README-{year}.md', 'w') as f:
    f.write(f"## Advent of Code {year}")
    for i in range(1, 26):
        f.write(readme.format(i=i))

https://github.com/nmoorenz/advent-of-code/blob/main/template.qmd

The template file is here, with standard boilerplate for reading the input file. The first {yaml} line isn’t in the file, it’s just to stop the header being evaluated.

---
title: "Advent of Code {year} Day {x}"
author: "Nathan Moore"
format: html
editor: visual
---

Write the Puzzle explanation here

with open('data-{year}-{x:02d}.txt', 'r') as f:
    inp = f.read().splitlines()

Maybe write an explanation of the solution approach here

# here's another python cell for good luck

Paste part two here

https://github.com/nmoorenz/advent-of-code/blob/main/get-input.py

I use the get input file to get one day’s worth of input data, usually on the day the problem is published. This requires a session cookie when logged in to the AoC site. This also assumes the file already exists from the process above.

py get-input.py 2023 1

import requests
import sys

# used to authenticate with AoC
with open('session-cookie.txt') as f: 
    cookie = f.read()

# required arguments
year = sys.argv[1]
day = sys.argv[2]

url = f'https://adventofcode.com/{year}/day/{day}/input'

inp = requests.get(url, cookies={"session": cookie})

# print(inp.text)
dd = f'{int(day):02d}'

# overwrite, assume we are only calling once though
with open(f'{year}/data-{year}-{dd}.txt', 'w') as f:
    f.write(inp.text[:-1])

https://github.com/nmoorenz/advent-of-code/blob/main/get-all-input.py

Finally we have the get all input file, which uses the get input file, with a polite sleep timer of 2 seconds. Calling this file 25 times in a row isn’t going to tax the AoC servers when 1000s of people usually play, but it’s a nice thing to do.

py get-all-input.py 2023

# import os
import sys
import time
import subprocess

year = sys.argv[1]

i = 1
while i <= 25:
    time.sleep(2)
    subprocess.run(['python', 'get-input.py', year, str(i)])
    i += 1